I am on the taxi rank in my own taxi, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is.
It is going properly. There is neither puddle of oil nor cloud of black smoke.
That is also wonderful. Happy New Year to me.
Mark has fixed it. I ought to be being grateful but I am not. He has been fixing it all day, but he has not been answering his phone, with the result that I did not know if it was going to be finished or not. Hence when a booking came in and I had to go out to work I had to go in his taxi, which was not a happy experience.
I became more and more worried that my taxi would not be fixed by the evening, and rang him and rang him and rang him, only for my calls to land in an empty void, making me even more flappy.
Eventually I got through to Jack, who told me that my taxi had been fixed ages ago but they were being busy fixing his car, and so they had not been answering the phone.
I was not at all impressed.
Actually I was very cross indeed, all that wasted worry.
I would like to think that I am calming down now, safe in the happy surroundings of my own familiar taxi, with a cup of chai and Radio Three crashing out the Last Night of the Proms – Roger Taylor and Brian May leading the BBC Concert Orchestra, which was so splendid that it made me cry. All the same, I am not sure that I am calming down even yet, even though it is Shostakovich, because Mark has done something with the wire to charge my telephone and I have had to borrow Jack’s. I am troubled about this and would like my own charge leads back, but Mark has lost them.
I am trying to feel better. I expect I will get there eventually, either that or keel over with an stress-related illness.
Further to last night’s complaints about AI taking over the world, I feel that it is incumbent upon me to issue a warning at this point.
I have just discovered how very closely our cyber-companions are observing us. It is quite clear that Siri, or possibly Google, has been eavesdropping on my conversations. I have this very minute received two emails, one advertising new leads for my telephone, and the other suggesting cannabis-related products to help me combat stress and telling me that shouting is bad for me.
If you are plotting to overthrow the Government I strongly suggest that you do not tell your telephone about it.
Write a letter instead.
Apart from being worried about my taxi I have had quite a mellow sort of day.
I have finished the article for the taxi magazine, which was a relief. I managed to cram it into one thousand words exactly. Meeting the word count was a small obsession which I developed at Cambridge, and it turns out that it has not gone away, despite being rather a superfluous skill at the moment.
The proms are playing sea shanties now. The hornpipe made me cry as well.
I think I might organise tickets for the proms one year, maybe when we retire and can predict our time off.
Back to the day.
Of course it is New Year’s Eve, so the children are having a small party. It is very small, there are just four of them, and it sounds as though they are going to celebrate with a wild game of Monopoly.
I got our things ready for work and cooked sausages for the children to stick on pizzas.
Some utter berk just talked all the way through Land Of Hope And Glory. I ignored her and turned the sound up, but she did not seem to notice and just kept on wittering.
Actually we are starting to get busy, so I think probably I had better call it a night and concentrate on earning a living.
A very Happy New Year to you all.
See you on the other side.
